Newsmaker

Every Friday, we choose an alum who has been making headlines—for better or for worse.
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Frances Beinecke ’71, ’74MFS

Don’t cry over spilled oil—just prevent spills. That’s the advice Frances Beinecke ’71, ’74MFS, has been giving the country for decades. Now she has a high-level platform for her message: the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling—aka the BP disaster panel. An expert on coastal environmental protection and clean energy, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council has long advocated reducing American dependence on oil and protecting crucial ecosystems from drilling. In early May, Beinecke urged President Barack Obama to order an independent investigation of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In late May, after Obama announced the Deepwater commission, Beinecke wrote that it “must review whether, when, and where offshore drilling should occur.” Beinecke has called the BP spill both “a catastrophe of the largest dimension that we have ever seen” and “an opportunity to really focus all of this country on what our oil addiction is.” Now, with her June 14 appointment, Beinecke and fellow commissioners are charged with “providing recommendations on how we can prevent—and mitigate the impact of—any future spills that result from offshore drilling.”

Filed under alumnae, FES, environment school, milestones, appointed
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